Firefighters spent the day shoring up the charred structure of a Makiki Heights home that killed two people early this morning.
Attempts to recover the body of a man and woman from the burnt three-story home at 2069 Mauna Place were hampered because building was too unsafe to enter.
Capt. Terry Seelig said he expected the bodies to be removed before the end of the day and taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office for identification and cause of death.
Seelig said eight people lived in the Makiki Heights home but it is unknown how many were present when the fire started. Of the home's five renters, two are believed to be the dead bodies, two have been located safe, and one is unaccounted for.

The home's owner, who identified herself as H.R.H. Fleur, and two of her family members escaped unharmed.

Fire officials were called to the home above Roosevelt High School about 12:20 a.m. and arrived to a building engulfed in flames.

Forty firefighters responded and had the fire under control by 12:54 a.m., but the smoldering blaze was not declared extinguished until 8 a.m. Initial firefighting efforts were focused on making sure the fire did not spread to nearby homes.
Fleur, her daughter Mara Kyle, and Fleur’s grandson Ikaika Kinoshita, 19, all escaped unharmed from the ground level of the three-floor home.
The tenants who died were on the second and third levels.
Kyle said she heard some of the tenants fighting loudly just before the fire started.
Three tenants — a female and two males — are unaccounted for, Honolulu police said.